Configuring VMware ESXi & vCenter Server Backup

Configuring VMware ESXi & vCenter Server Backup

For creating a fresh backup job on your backup server, simply click on Backup > Configure Backup > VMware vSphere. In this section, you will find a comprehensive explanation of the seven-step process to configure a VMware backup job.

Step 1: Adding Basic Job Details

To begin, create a backup job by selecting the Job Create Option. If you prefer to start from scratch, choose to Create Job without using a template. Alternatively, if you wish to utilize a pre-existing template for the backup job, select Create Job using an existing template.
When opting to Create Job using an existing template, you must select a pre-established template to be utilized for this backup job. Selecting a backup job template will automatically load the VM/Disk Exclusion, Guest VM Processing, Backup Scheduling, and Job Settings from the chosen template.

Backup Job Name

In the Backup Job Name filed, Provide a name for the backup job to identify it. The allowed characters in the backup job name are [A-Z][a-z][0-9][ – _ ]. Space and Special characters are not allowed.

Backup Repository

Choose Block storage or the Object storage as per requirement.

Immutable Backups (Only for Object Storage)

You have the option to enable this feature by checking the box, which will secure your backups as immutable for a specific duration. The duration can be specified and you do it for up to 999 day(s). The duration set will be applied to this backup job, which you’ll configure in subsequent steps. When configuring other backup jobs, ensure to adjust the duration according to your needs.
Immutable backup in the BDRSuite Backup Server is a  backup strategy or system you can use where once the data is backed up, it cannot be edited, deleted, or tampered with until a predefined time period expires that can be set up as shown below in the image representation. This approach adds an extra layer of protection to the backup data, making it resistant to ransomware attacks, accidental or malicious changes.

Repository Name

After selecting the Backup Repository type, you have to select the name of the Block Storage or Object Storage repository to store the backup data. Click on the drop-down to select the backup repository name.

Job Description

In the Job Description field, provide a description for future reference. You can provide additional information related to this backup job in the description field.

Step 2: Select Host/VMs/VM Templates to Backup

The ESXi/vCenter Servers added to the Data Sources of the BDRSuite Backup Server will be listed. If you have added a vCenter Server, then all the  ESXi hosts under that vCenter Server and VMs/VM Template under each ESXi host will be listed and can be backed up.

A VM template can be be created in 2 ways,
  1. Converting  VM to template (Creating a VM and converting to Template)
  2. Clone to Template (Preserve the original VM and copy the VM data to a Template)
Both types will be listed like any other virtual machine under the ESXi host, but with the icon differentiation.
Notes
Note: A VM Template will not be listed for backup when trying to configure it from the ESXi host.
Select the virtual machines/VM Template for the backup from the list available in the added ESXi or vCenter Server by selecting the checkboxes corresponding to it.

You can either select the individual VMs/VM Template or the entire ESXi host for the backup. You can also select the VMs/VM Templates from different ESXi in a single backup job.

Notes
Note:
If the entire ESXi host is selected for backup, the new VM/s added to that host will be automatically backed up in the next schedule. Each backup job can have multiple VMs in it. During the backup schedule, VM data will be processed based on the configuration you set on the Backups > Configure Backup Settings > Concurrent Backups.

To Know
  1. The option to backup your VM Template is supported from BDRSuite v5.5.
  2. The snapshot process(Incremental backups) and app-aware process is not supported for the VM Template backup as the VM Template cannot be modified and will remain in the off state.
  3. The existing VM Template which is backed up using BDRSuite Backup Server, if converted to a virtual machine then incremental backups will run for the converted VM as per the next schedule.
  4. If an existing virtual machine which is backed up using BDRSuite Backup Server, if converted to a VM Template then the incremental backups will keep continuing as per the schedule and timestamps will be as usual listed at the time of restores.
  5. Apart from App-aware processing and VMware Quiescing all the other configurations like the scheduling, additional full backup synthetic full backup, retention, file exclusion, will have the same behavior for the VM Template as it is for VM/s.
  6. Data Integrity check will also work for the VM Template as it does for the VM/s.

Step 3: Specify VM/Disk Exclusion

Once you have chosen the VMs/Hosts for backup, you have the option to specify any VMs or disks that should be excluded from the backup process.

VM Exclusion

  1. If one or more ESXi hosts or vCenter Server is selected for the backup, then you can see the selected hosts are being displayed under the VM Exclusion page.
  2. Click on the list icon corresponding to the ESXi host and select the VMs you want to exclude from the backup.
  3. Excluding VMs is applicable only if the entire Hosts are selected for backup. It is not applicable if only VMs under Hosts are selected for backup

Disk Exclusion

  1. You can exclude a particular disk type being backed up either at the host level or VM level using the Disk Exclusion. Under the Disk Exclusion tab, you can find all the hosts & VMs selected for the backup.
  2. You can configure the global exclusion rules for the entire host or selected VMs by clicking on the edit icon. If you are configuring the disk exclusion for the entire ESXi, it will be applicable to all the VMs running inside that particular host.
  3. You can also specify the disk exclusion setting for the individual VMs in the host by clicking on the list icon and selecting the VMs to which you want to apply the disk exclusion setting individually and click on Add VMs for Disk Exclusion.
  4. Clicking on the edit icon corresponding to the Host or VM will display the following options.
Include All Disks for backup. No Disks should be excluded: No disks will be excluded from the backup. By default, this option is selected.

Include only System Disks for backup. Exclude others (Typically Disk 0:0): This option will include only the OS Disks for backup and exclude others. Only the disk with the number 0:0 will be included regardless of the Disk type.

Exclude the following selected Disks from backup: This option will allow you to select the type of disk that has to be excluded from the backup schedule such as IDE, SATA, and SCSI.

Notes
Note: A VM Template can also be excluded and the VM/Disk Exclusion feature will work for the VM Template as it does for a normal virtual machine backup.

Steps to Identify the Disk type in VMware vCenter/ESXi host

  1. Login Into Vcenter/ Esxi Host
  2. Select the Virtual Machine whose hard disks information you want to view.
  3. Then Select “Edit Settings” under “Actions” option.
  4. You can see each Hard Disk with serial number under the “Virtual Hardware” tab.
  5. Expand Hard Disk. You can see disk controller type (Like IDE, SCSI, SATA or NVMe) and its controller number with disk enumeration order (0:0) in “Virtual Device Node” option.

Step 4: Setup Guest VM Processing

Guest processing refers to the set of operations performed on virtual machines (VMs) within a backup or replication job. It involves various tasks such as application-aware processing, transaction log truncation, and other operations related to the guest operating system.

Guest VM Processing offers three customizable categories that can be tailored to meet specific requirements.

Guest Processing Settings

This section includes

Windows Application

If you are backing up a Windows VM with Microsoft applications such as Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, or AD, under the Windows Application tab, you can see the options to customize the Application-aware Processing & Log Truncation.

Application-aware processing

Application-aware processing ensures consistency of the Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server, Active Directory, SharePoint, and Oracle database inside the VM. When application-aware processing is enabled, the backup software communicates with the application inside the VM to quiesce or freeze its operations momentarily. This ensures that any pending transactions or data in memory are properly flushed to disk before the backup snapshot is taken.

  1. On selecting Require successful application processing (recommended), the backup will continue only if all the application writers are stable and the application-aware processing is successful.
  2. On selecting Ignore application processing failures, the backup will proceed regardless of whether application-aware is successful or not. This is not recommended, as your backup may not be transaction-consistent.
  3. On selecting Disable application-aware processing, the backup will proceed without ensuring the transaction consistency for the applications inside the VMs.
Log Truncation

Truncating the transaction logs helps maintain the optimal performance of the application or database by preventing the log files from becoming excessively large. It also ensures that the logs do not consume unnecessary disk space.

  1. On selecting Truncate the transaction logs, the transaction logs of Microsoft Exchange Server & Microsoft SQL Server will be truncated after the successful backups.
  2. On selecting Do not truncate logs, the transaction logs of Microsoft Exchange Server & Microsoft SQL Server will not be truncated.

Oracle

If you are backing up a VM with Oracle Database, you can specify how the oracle archive log must be processed during the backup. Under the Oracle tab, you can see the options to process the oracle database logs.

  1. On selecting Do not delete archive logs, the archive logs of the oracle database will not be processed or deleted during the backup process.
  2. On selecting Delete archive logs older than, you have to specify the time period in hours. The logs older than the specified time will be automatically truncated.
  3. On selecting Delete logs over, you have to specify the size of the logs in GB. The logs larger than the specified size will be automatically truncated
You have to specify the credential with SYSDBA privileges on the Oracle instance installed in the guest VM to process the archive logs. You can select the credentials from the list or add a new credential by clicking on the Add New Credentials button.

File Exclusion

Exclude the system files like pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys from backup to save the disk space. File exclusion is supported only for Windows NTFS volumes. If you do not want to backup system files like pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys from your windows VM. You can exclude it by selecting the Exclude system files like pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys from the backup checkbox in the File Exclusion tab. Note that this option is supported only for Windows NTFS volumes.

File Exclusion can be applied for VM Template as well.

Click on Apply after selecting the required Application-Aware processing, Log Truncation, Oracle Archive log processing & File Exclusion settings. Click on Next after applying the required setting.

To begin customizing the guest processing configuration for the selected VMs in the backup, simply check the ‘Enable Guest Processing Settings for All Hosts/VMs below’ checkbox.

  1. If you are selecting the entire ESXi host or vCenter server for a backup, and if you want to customize the guest processing setting for the individual guest VMs, Click on the List icon in the action column corresponding to the ESXi host or vCenter server and select the VM & click Add VMs for Guest Processing button.
  2. Selected VMs will be listed on the Guest Processing settings page, from where you can customize the guest processing setting for the individual guest VMs.
Notes
Note: Guest Processing Settings is an optional step, you can also continue without setting up the guest processing. If the guest OS processing is not enabled, the snapshot is taken irrespective of whether the VSS Writers are stable or not. There is a higher chance of data corruption in this case which can lead to corrupted data restoration during disaster recovery.
  1. To customize the guest processing settings of the VMs or the Host, you have to select the checkbox corresponding to the Host/VM Name and click the Edit Guest Processing Settings button on the right side of your screen.
By default,
  1. Application-Aware Processing is set to Require successful application processing (recommended).
  2. Log Truncation is set to Truncate the transaction logs.
  3. Archived logs processing is set to Delete archive logs older than 1 hour.
  4. File exclusion is set to Exclude system files like pagefile. sys and hiberfil.sys from backup.

Guest Credentials

You have the option to provide the credentials necessary to perform Guest OS Processing for the VM.
  1. To apply the credentials, select the VMs or Host from the list and click the Apply Credential button on the right side of your screen.
  2. Select the credentials from the list or you can add the new credentials by clicking the Add Credentials button. The selected credentials are applied to the selected VMs. BDRSuite will try to log in to the VMs using the selected credential and perform guest processing.
  3. If you are selecting the entire ESXi host or vCenter server for a backup, and if the login credential of the guest OS differs, then you can click on the List icon in the action column corresponding to the ESXi host or vCenter server and select the VM & click Add VMs for Guest Processing button.
  4. Once the selected VMs are listed on the Guest Credentials page, you can customize the login credentials.
Notes
Note: Make sure the VMware tools are installed on the guest VMs selected for guest OS processing.

VMware Quiescing

Quiesces the VMs before taking the snapshot for application-consistent backup. VMware Quiescing should be enabled if you require application consistency for your backups. If you disable VMware quiescing for any of the VMs, then successful application processing cannot be guaranteed.
  1. In the VMware Quiescing page, Toggle the slider to the right to enable the VMware Quiescing for all the VMs selected for the backup.
  2. If you don’t want to Quiesce the one or more VMs during the backup, you can disable the Quiescing for the individual VMs.

Step 5: Backup Job Scheduling

Following the initial full backup, the BDRSuite Backup Server performs subsequent backups by backing up only the changed blocks of the selected hosts or VMs. Additionally, you can also choose to schedule the following different type of backups.

Incremental Backup Schedule

Within the incremental backup schedule, BDRSuite selectively backs up solely the altered blocks of the VMs since the most recent full backup. You can schedule the incremental backup on any one of the following intervals.
  1. Manually: The incremental backup will not run automatically, you have to go to Backup > List Backup Jobs page and run the incremental backups manually.
  2. One Time: The backup will run only once at the selected time. No incremental backups will be processed after that.
  3. Every Few Hours/Min: You can specify a frequency and days to run the incremental backups. The minimum frequency to run the incremental backups in the Every Few Hours/Min option is 15 minutes. By default, all the days of the week are selected. If you don’t want to run your backup on all days, select only the days in which you want to run the incremental backup.
  4. Daily: In the daily option, you can specify the days and number of times the incremental backups should run on a particular day. You can run the incremental backups to run up to 5 times a day and you have to specify the time timing for every incremental backup.
  5. Weekly: In the weekly option, you have to specify the day, and when you want to run the incremental backups on the specified day. In the weekly incremental schedule, you can run only one incremental backup per day.
  6. Monthly: In the monthly option, you have to specify the months, and a day in the month, and a time in the selected day to run the incremental backup.
  7. After Backup: You have to specify the name of the already created backup job. So the backup job will run immediately after the selected backup job schedule is completed successfully.

Synthetic Full Backup

Running an additional full backup periodically is resource-intensive and requires more network bandwidth. In these situations, you can use the synthetic full backup option of BDRSuite as an alternative.

Instead of creating a new full backup periodically by creating a snapshot of the source VM, BDRSuite creates synthetic full backup by merging full and subsequent incremental in the repository without running an additional full backup. A synthetic full backup is an optional configuration, you can save the backup job without enabling the Synthetic merge.

Enable the synthetic full backup by toggling the slider to the right. Once enabled you to have to specify the scheduling for the synthetic merge to happen.

Specify the synthetic full backup frequency. You can specify the synthetic merge to happen on a weekly or monthly basis.

  1. If you have scheduled the incremental backups to run Every Few Hours/Min or Daily or After Backup, then you can set the synthetic merge frequency as weekly or monthly.
  2. If you have scheduled the incremental backups to run Weekly or Monthly, then you can set the synthetic merge frequency to happen only on a monthly basis.
  3. Synthetic merge is disabled Manually & One Time backup schedules.
If you are selecting the synthetic full merge to happen on a weekly basis, then you have to select a day and start time to run the synthetic merge. You can select one or more days in a week to run the synthetic merge.

If you are selecting the synthetic full merge to happen on a monthly basis, then you have to select the month, select a day in the month and start time to run the synthetic merge. You can select one or more months in a year to run the synthetic merge.

Additional Full Backup Schedule

In some cases, you may require to create a periodic full backup weekly or monthly, or quarterly basis to adhere to your organization policy. Also, it is not a best practice to configure a backup job with one full backup followed by forever incremental backups. BDRSuite’s’s Additional full backup option allows you to comply with your requirements by creating a full backup periodically.

The additional full backup resets a backup chain and the subsequent incremental are based on the recent full backup. Running additional full backups frequently may sometimes lead to storage space consumption, you can automatically delete the older full backups chain by setting the appropriate retention policy for the additional full backups or deleting it manually when required.

Enable the additional full backup by toggling the slider to the right. Once enabled you have to specify the scheduling for the synthetic merge to happen.

Specify the Additional full backup frequency. You can specify to run the additional full backups on a weekly or monthly basis.
  1. If you have scheduled the incremental backups to run Every Few Hours/Min or Daily or After Backup, then you can set the additional full backups frequency as Daily or Weekly or Monthly.
  2. If you have scheduled the incremental backups to run Weekly or Monthly, then you can set the additional full backups to run on a Weekly or Monthly basis.
  3. An additional full backup is disabled Manually & One Time backup schedules
If you are selecting the additional full backups to run on a daily basis, then you have to select the start time to run the additional full backups.

If you are selecting the additional full backups to run on a weekly basis, then you have to select a day and start time to run the synthetic merge. You can select one or more days in a week to run the additional full backups.

If you are selecting the additional full backups to happen on a monthly basis, then you have to select the month, select a day in the month and start time to run the additional full backups. You can select one or more months in a year to run the additional full backups.

Advanced Schedule Settings

The Advanced Schedule Settings allow you to specify the Backup Window time and Backup Validity for your backup job.

Backup Window

If you don’t want the backup run at a specific time interval, then you can specify it in the backup time window. The backup window prevents the backup job from running during peak production hours and ensures there is no unwanted overhead in the production environment. Select one of the available options to set up the backup window for your backup job

Use Global Settings: Selecting the‘ Use Global Settings’ option will apply the Backup Window setting of your backup server to this backup job. You can set up the global backup window settings for your entire backup server at Backup > Configure Backup Settings > Backup Window.

  1. In case, if you are selecting the ‘Use Global Settings’, but if global backup window settings are disabled for your backup server, then the job will run as per its schedule
  2. If you are modifying the Global Backup Windows settings later, it will affect all the backup jobs that are selected with ‘Use Global Settings’
Use Custom Settings: On selecting ‘Use Custom settings’, you have to specify the start time and end time for the window. The backup job will not be during the selected time interval. You can also specify the applicable days for the backup window settings such as Mon-Fri or All days. Selecting the ‘Use Custom settings’ will override the global backup window settings.

No Preferences: Selecting ‘No Preferences’ will override the global backup window settings and the backup job will run as per the schedule.

Backup Validity

Set the validity for your backup job by specifying the start date and the expiration date. The Backup job will start to run only after the start date.

If you want a backup job to start to run later, for example, 5 days later from the day you have created the backup job, then you can specify the start date of the backup job accordingly. The expiry date is optional for a backup job, if the expiry date is set the incremental backup or additional full backup does not proceed after that.
Notes
Note: A VM Template if chosen for backup will also allow you to configure scheduling and the process will work as it works for VM.

Step 6: Backup Job Settings

The backup job settings section allows you to set up the following for your backup job

Retention

The retention policy allows you to specify the number of days or number of versions, an incremental recovery point should be retained for the backup job. By setting up the retention policy, the redundant data blocks of the older recovery points are deleted from the backup repository, thereby saving the storage space. If the retention for incremental backup is disabled, all restore points will be retained.

Enable the retention for your incremental backup by toggling the slider to the right. Once enabled you have to select the retention method to retain the restore points. You can choose from the following Retention options.

Retention for Incremental Backup

Basic Retention
With basic retention, you have the flexibility to determine whether to retain a specific number of incremental versions or to specify the number of days to preserve an incremental recovery point with the following version based and day based retention

Version Based Retention
If you are selecting the version-based retention for the incremental backups, then you have to specify the number of versions to be retained. You can select from 1 to 999 versions.
Notes
Note: For example, if you configure hourly incremental backups and select ‘10 versions’ to retain, BDRSuite Backup Server will retain only the last 10 hours of recovery points of the backed-up machine.
Day Based Retention
The “day-based retention” feature in BDRSuite allows users to specify the number of days that incremental recovery points should be retained. This means that users can select a specific number of days, such as 14, to retain 2 weeks of recovery points. Additionally, the “Minimum version(s)” option can be selected to avoid losing recovery points due to backup failures.

This ensures that the BDRSuite will retain the minimum number of recovery points specified in the “Minimum version(s)” field, even if the backup job does not run for a certain number of days.

Without this option, the BDRSuite would remove all incremental recovery points. By default, the “Minimum version(s)” option is set to 3 versions, but it can be increased as needed.

An example of how this feature might be used is as follows:

A user sets up the BDRSuite to perform hourly incremental backups. They then select the “day-based retention” option for the incremental backups and specify that they want to retain 14 days of incremental recovery points. The BDRSuite then begins performing hourly incremental backups and saves each recovery point for 14 days, as specified by the user. In total, the backup server retains 336 recovery points (14 days x 24 hours per day). When backup jobs are running successfully, the exceeding recovery points will be removed according to the “day-based retention” option. So, on the 15th day, the first day’s incremental data will be merged with the full backup and the incremental backup’s timestamp will be removed. However, if the backup job does not run for the next 15 days, all incremental recovery points should be removed according to the “day-based retention” option. But, If you have updated to keep “Minimum version(s)” as 24, as per the “Minimum version(s)” configuration, the BDRSuite will still retain 24 recovery points (one day’s worth of incremental timestamps). This ensures that a certain number of recovery points are always available, even if backup jobs are not running as expected.

GFS Retention

GFS stands for Grandfather, Father, and Son based retention that allows you to retain the recovery points of the backup jobs for long periods like weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Under the GFS retention, the weekly backups are referred to as “sons,” monthly backups as “fathers,” and yearly backups as “grandfathers”. BDRSuite Backup Server marks the GFS flag against the Additional full or Synthetic full backups or incremental backups.

There are two types of GFS retention; 1. GFS with Full Backups & 2. GFS with Incremental.
Notes
Note: If you need to enable GFS retention, it is necessary to choose either one of the options in basic retention, as GFS retention works in combination with basic retention.
 GFS with Full Backups
  1. The GFS restore points are created using additional full or synthetic full backups.
  2. The additional full backup or synthetic full backups are marked as weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly GFS recovery points.
  3. So, you should have already configured either the synthetic or additional full backup for the backup job.
  4. You can either choose weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly or any combination of GFS recovery points.
For example, If you want to retain 4 weeks, 12 months, 4 quarters of GFS recovery points, the available full backups in the backup repository will be marked as per the GFS retention schedule. So, based on this configuration, 20 GFS full recovery points will be retained at the end of the year.

GFS with Incremental
  1. The GFS restore points are created using incremental backups without including additional full or synthetic full backups.
  2. The incremental backups are marked as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly GFS restore points.
  3. On the successful completion of the 3rd-day’s first incremental backup, the 1st-day increments will get merged, to form a daily GFS recovery point. Similarly, on the 4th-day, the increments of the 2nd day will be consolidated as a single restore point and so on for the 5th-day and the 6th-day. This process continues to maintain the daily GFS recovery points.
  4. Similarly, if you choose weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly backups, the incremental backups from the previous week /month /quarter /year will be merged and a GFS recovery point will be created.

Retention for Deleted (or) Removed VMs

The retention for Deleted (or) Removed VMs allows you to specify a certain timeframe during which deleted or the removed virtual machine (VM) data is retained. Once this designated period expires, the data is permanently removed from the storage repository.

The following scenarios may apply
  1. Backup job configured for the entire host and a few VMs are deleted or moved from the host.
  2. Backup job configured for specific VMs and those are deleted or moved from the host.
  3. Backup job configured for entire host/specific VMs and then edited to exclude one or many VMs using the VM/Disk Exclusion option.
Notes
Note: This feature removes the deleted or removed VM’s data from the backup repository permanently based on the settings. So, once the retention time has reached, it removes the data from the storage targets. It cannot be undone.

In the Retention settings page,

Step 1: You can choose to enable by toggling the button or have this option disabled as per requirement.

Step 2: If you choose to enable then enter the number of days to retain the removed (or) deleted VM data.

Notes
Note:
In a scenario if the same deleted (or) removed VMs is added to the host again, as per the next schedule of the configured backup job, a full backup will be performed rather than an incremental backup. The same data will be replicated to the Backup Copy Job’s or the Offsite DR’s repository (If any configured).

Encryption

You can encrypt all the backup data for added protection. When encryption is enabled all the backup data blocks are encrypted using the AES-256 bit encryption algorithm both during the transfer and at the storage. For encrypting the backup data, you can use the system-generated encryption key or use a custom encryption key.
  1. By default, encryption is disabled for all the backup jobs, you can slide the toggle to the right to enable encryption for your backup data.
  2. Select ‘Use System Generated Encryption Key’ if you want to encrypt all your backup data using BDRSuite’s automatic System Generated Encryption Key. You do not need to specify any during the recovery or edit the backup job later.
  3. Select ‘ Use a Custom Encryption Key’ if you want to encrypt all your backup data using your own Encryption Key. You can select the already created encryption keys that are created for other backup jobs from the drop-down list or you can
  4. Add a new encryption key by providing the encryption password, encryption key hint.
  5. After providing the password and hint for the encryption key, click on the Save button.
Notes
Note:
Even if the encryption is disabled, BDRSuite uses the system-generated password to encrypt backup data on storage. If you provide a custom password for encryption, data integrity checks will not be performed. It is recommended to perform Instant Boot VM periodically to ensure data integrity

Password and its hint should not be the same to avoid security issues. The Password should contain at least a character, a number, and a special character [! @ # $ % ^ & *] .Encryption hint should be at least 6 characters and not more than 25 characters. Encryption hints are unique and no two passwords can have the same encryption hint

Advanced Settings

In the advanced settings, you have to choose a backup proxy server to distribute the load of the backup server which is optional. A backup proxy acts as an intermediary component between the backup server and the source ESXi/ vCenter in managing the jobs. A backup proxy processes the data from the source and delivers it to the backup server, while the backup server administers the data from the proxy servers and writes the data to the backup repository.

You can also continue to the next step without choosing the backup proxy. The backup job will be processed by the backup server itself if you haven’t selected any proxy server for a backup job.

To set up a backup proxy for a backup job, you need to enable the backup proxy setting in the advanced settings. Enable the backup proxy by toggling the slider button to the right. 

In the select backup proxy field, click on the drop-down and select a proxy server for the list to process the backup job.  If you haven’t added any proxy server, you can add from the Add & Manage Backup Proxy for VMware page. 

Step 7: Review & Save Backup Configuration

The last step in your VMware backup job is to review all the configurations you have selected. You can find all the details about your backup job in the review section. You have the option of running the backup job immediately after saving the backup. If you want your backup job to be triggered immediately after you save the backup, irrespective of the backup schedule you have configured, select the Run this job immediately after the saving option.

Carefully review all the configurations selected for the backup and save the backup job by clicking on the Save button. On saving the backup job, you will be prompted to confirm to proceed further. Click Save to complete the backup progress. The pop-up stating ‘Backup Saved Successfully’ will be prompted. You will then be moved to the List of Backup Jobs page.

Before creating a backup job for your VMware VMs, Kindly make sure;

  1. The ESXi hosts on which the VMs are running are added as data sources to the BDRSuite Backup Server.
  2. The VMware Backup proxy and backup repository are configured properly.
  3. The backup repository has enough free space to store the backup data.
  4. You have configured the email notification to receive alerts on the backup on the job such as successful, missed, or failed backups.
  5. To back up Microsoft SQL transaction logs, the recovery model must be set to Full or Bulk-logged recovery for required databases on Microsoft SQL Server VMs. If the recovery model is set to Simple, the transaction logs on Microsoft SQL Server VMs will not be detected and processed.
  6. To back up Oracle transaction logs, the ARCHIVELOG must be turned on for required databases on Oracle VMs. If the ARCHIVELOG is turned off, the transaction logs on Oracle VMs will not be detected and processed.